


Real Gay Normal Sex

by pool_of_time



Category: Arrested Development
Genre: M/M, and a dash of angst, and half introspection, it's about half sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 01:05:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18272675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pool_of_time/pseuds/pool_of_time
Summary: And that’s when Tony kisses him for real. No masks. His left hand is behind Gob’s head, in his hair, and his right hand is trailing down Gob’s chest. Gob forgets what he was thinking about. Why was he thinking in the first place? He doesn’t remember.





	Real Gay Normal Sex

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fan fiction I've written since middle school, which was more than 10 years ago. And the first smut I've ever written. Guess I figured out come out of the gate with a bang... so to speak. I originally wrote it just for myself, but I love reading everyone else's fics and I figured why not share? :)

The door opens for barely a second, a figure slips in, and the room is dark again. It’s impossible to see anything but vague outlines in that room, but the figure knows they saw a second figure lying on the bed during the brief time the door was open.

The first figure turns towards the bed and carefully climbs up on their knees, not wanting to slam their shins against something because wow, it really is fucking dark in here. They’re pretty sure bedrooms are legally required to have a window. But that’s obviously not the only building code this house is violating, so they figure it’s par for the course.

Damn it, they’ve lost track of where the second figure is on the bed. “Hello Tony Wonder, are you ready to have normal sex with me, Gob Bluth?”

The figure hears the second figure’s voice in front of them and to their left on the bed. “Of course I am, Gob, because as everybody knows, I’m the gay magician and I only have normal sex with men.”

The first figure crawls forward until they’re kneeling with one leg on either side of the second figure. “Same. I mean I’m not the gay magician, but I too only have normal sex with men, because I am gay.”

“Wow, _and,_ you can get your voice to go _really_ deep. That’s great, maybe a little bit creepy. But great. Really sells that you’re a man,” the second figure says.

“Thanks,” the first figure says, although they’re a little confused. They’re not sure what the hell that’s supposed to mean. But they choose to ignore it, because when have they ever cared whether or not something made sense? They finish undoing the second figure’s bathrobe and slide their hands up the second figure’s… abs? Chest? They freeze, straddling the second figure’s hips.

The second figure reaches out and starts undoing the first figure’s jeans. “Hey, why’d you bother putting on these pants? You’re supposed to just be wearing the robe.” They move onto the first figure’s jacket, unzipping it and pulling it off. “And where did you even get this jacket? Is this mine?”

“…Gob?” the first figure, Tony Wonder, asks. He’d been tipped off by the voice, of course, and the shapes that are starting to become evident in the thin light filtering in under the door. But touching the second figure’s chest is really what gives it away. She (who? Was he expecting a woman here? It’s a little hazy) isn’t the bustiest, but she obviously doesn’t have a torso like this. Although he can’t remember anymore who “she” is, so maybe—

“I’m not Gob, I’m Tony—wait, Tony? Is that you?” the second figure, Gob Bluth, asks.

“Yeah. Is that you, Gob?”

“Yeah. Who were you expecting?”

Tony pauses, earnestly thinking. “I… don’t remember. I think… I vaguely remember, maybe I was expecting… myself? Who were _you_ expecting?”

Gob is quiet for a second. “Same. I mean, I think I also was expecting myself.”

Both of them had forgotten about _her_ , the woman they had both planned to sleep with in order to get revenge on the other. And neither of them give any thought to the fact that they can’t possibly have _legitimately_ been expecting to have sex with themselves. It’s just not an important point right now.

“Well, I’m not you,” Tony says.

“No, you’re not me. You’re straddling me. I mean, you’re Tony Wonder. Tony Wonder is straddling me. My hands are on Tony Wonder’s hips. When did my hands get on your hips?” When _did_ they get there? He didn’t remember putting them there. Were they there the whole time? No, that didn’t make any sense, Tony started at the door and he started on the bed, obviously there had to be a point when his hands weren’t—

Gob’s runaway thought process is halted as his eyes adjust to the darkness and he notices that Tony is breathing very heavily on top of him. His mouth goes dry and he has a sudden impulse to wrench his hands away from Tony’s hips. But instead they reflexively tighten.

Tony slides his hands off Gob’s stomach, manicured nails scratching lightly against Gob’s sides. Gob shivers. Did Tony do that on purpose?

“Do you want to do this anyway?” Tony asks, leaning forward slightly and unintentionally (intentionally? Gob isn’t sure) shifting over Gob’s cock.

Gob puts all his focus into staying perfectly still. “But you’re not gay.”

“Neither are you.”

They stare at each other for a full minute.

During that minute, Tony’s brain is running every scenario it can come up with. What will happen if he does this? What will happen if he _doesn’t_ do this? Should he pretend he’s done this before? Has Gob done this before? What if Gob _has_ done this before? What if Gob doesn’t want to, what should he do if he says no? What should he do if Gob says yes? What if—

Meanwhile, Gob has decided within the first two seconds of that minute that he definitely _does_ want to do this. The following fifty-seven seconds (although he’s not counting) are spent trying not to think about what that means. The last second is spent realizing that this is the most thought he’s ever given to a sexual encounter in his entire life, and the best way to avoid thinking of the implications is to just do it. So he reaches up and pulls Tony’s face down to meet his.

Somehow he’s forgotten they’re wearing masks. He tries to kiss Tony but gets a mouthful of plastic, or possibly rubber. Maybe latex? He’s not sure, but he is sure that he doesn’t want it on his face anymore. “Fucking masks, why are we even wearing these things, impossible to have normal sex with these on, real gay normal sex _or_ fake straight normal sex, whose idea was this in the first place…” Half of that is muffled as he pulls the mask off, but Tony hears the last part as his own mask is pulled off.

“I think it was your idea.”

“Impossible, I only have good—“ He sees Tony’s face, just inches from his own, and stops short as suddenly, for the first time in his life, he’s nervous about having sex. It’s not a bad nervous; he just wants to do this _right_ for some reason. But what’s the worry, it’s not like he’s ever had any complaints, he’s Gob Bluth, he can—

And that’s when Tony kisses him for real. No masks. His left hand is behind Gob’s head, in his hair, and his right hand is trailing down Gob’s chest. Gob forgets what he was thinking about. Why was he thinking in the first place? He doesn’t remember.

Kissing Tony isn’t like kissing a girl. It isn’t even really the facial hair that makes it different. Gob’s kissed plenty of girls with facial hair. Usually to get back at Michael. Michael’s got a weird type.

No, it’s different because it feels… good. It’s not just a thing he has to get out of the way before he can have sex. It’s something he likes all on its own. He likes the way Tony bites his lip, the way Tony runs his hands through his hair. His hand on Gob’s chest, his teeth on Gob’s earlobe. He feels like one of those girls who are always moaning and sighing as he sucks their necks.

But the longer this goes on, the harder he’s getting and he’s not getting any friction. He’s _actually_ going to go insane. He pulls Tony close and flips him over on his back. Puts his thigh between Tony’s legs. Much better.

Tony is staring at him, breathless. Even though Gob has been hard almost since they first started kissing, he’s a little surprised to find that Tony is just as hard. He grinds against Tony and watches Tony gasp and bite his lip. God, that’s sexy. So he does it again.

Tony’s a little too short to reach Gob’s mouth with Gob grinding on him. But he doesn’t want Gob to stop grinding on him, god no. So he’s nipping at Gob’s neck and running his nails down Gob’s back. He has his hands on Gob’s bare stomach, on his back, on his ass.

When Tony squeezes Gob’s ass, Gob lets out a long, low moan and presses himself even harder against Tony’s thigh. He doesn’t feel like Tony is close enough. Gob slides his hands over Tony’s own ass and pulls him closer. He realizes Tony is still wearing his jeans. Well that’s clearly unfair. He tugs them off and throws them on the floor. Then he pulls Tony’s tank top off over his head. 

For just a beat, he stops and stares at Tony’s body. He feels something pounding in his chest beyond just arousal. He’s not sure what it is, but he doesn’t give himself a lot of time to think about it. He’s grinding against Tony’s hips, kissing and biting Tony’s neck, laughing softly at Tony’s hitched breathing, and when Tony digs his nails into his back, he moans. He’d be embarrassed if Tony weren’t moaning too. He smiles against Tony’s mouth. He’s making Tony Wonder moan.

He wants to do it some more.

He raises up onto his knees and starts licking down Tony’s chest. Tony lets out a soft whine at the sudden lack of contact against his cock. God, is it possible that’s sexier than the moans? When he gets down to Tony’s happy trail, he stays there a bit, nipping and teasing, slowly pulling down Tony’s boxer briefs.

When Tony’s whining and panting and attempts at thrusting start getting a little hysterical, Gob finally takes Tony’s cock into his mouth. Tony lets out a long, deep groan at that, and Gob feels himself get even harder. As he moves his head and his tongue up and down, and his fingers over Tony’s testicle (the one the dove didn’t eat), Tony is gripping his shoulders like a vice until his groans turn into “wait, wait, wait” and he’s hitting Gob’s shoulder repeatedly with his open palm.

Gob stops. “What is it?”

Tony is gasping for breath. “I’m going to come if you don’t stop.”

Gob grins crookedly. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. You’ve done this before,” Tony says accusingly.

Gob slides up next to Tony and starts sloppily kissing his neck. “Yeah.”

“I thought—mm—I thought you were straight.”

“I am straight. I did it for money. I mean, not that I needed the money or anything. But that’s the only reason I did it.”

Tony feels like there’s a logical flaw in what Gob just said, but he’s too turned on to think about anything other than Gob’s mouth. So he props himself up onto his side and swings his leg onto the other side of Gob, straddling him again. He kisses Gob once on the mouth, hard, and then sits up. He stares down at Gob staring back up at him. The look Gob is giving him suddenly makes him feel uncharacteristically shy.

“Fuck, you’re so fucking hot,” Gob says, almost… reverently? He reaches up and grabs Tony’s arms, trying to pull him back down against him.

“Nope,” Tony says, and at first Gob gives him a confused pout, but when he sees that Tony is shimmying downwards, his face breaks into that big, dopey, crooked grin. The one Tony’s found inexplicably endearing since that first night they went out together.

He pulls off Gob’s boxer briefs and throws them… somewhere, who cares. Then he’s staring at Gob’s cock and he feel simultaneously excited and anxious. “I’ve never done this before.”

“I don’t care.”

“I just hope you’re not expecting anything spectacular.”

“I’m expecting to get blown by Tony Wonder and that’s pretty fucking spectacular.”

“No pressure, right?” Tony mumbles to himself. But when he puts Gob into his mouth, he feels pretty pleased at the response he gets, somewhere between a groan and a cry.

The entire time he’s blowing Gob, Gob seems to be running a commentary on everything that pops into his mind. As if the pleasure Tony’s giving him has punched a hole in Gob’s already faulty brain-mouth filter. A few times Tony almost gags because he starts laughing, but if Gob notices, it doesn’t make him break his monologue. This is fun, Tony is having _fun_. Gob is saying everything in that gravelly, sexy (objectively, Tony thinks, regardless of gender preference) voice, but nothing he says is particularly coherent.

“Jesus, Tony, you’re—you’re a fucking liar, you haven’t done this before. Come on. _Come on._ Fuck. I’m not—like I said, I’m not gay, but this feels amazing, I’m as straight as they come but this feels—fuck—this is hot and the only—there’s only one explanation, which is that you’ve done this before. And maybe I should—should the guy—maybe I should become gay for real and then we could—you could—do this more often. But should the guy—should the guy in the—no, I’m not wearing anything, fuck, should the guy in the zero dollar—get a blowjob from the guy also in a zero dollar—except your hair gel which I’m sure is expensive—fuck, don’t stop, no, do stop, stop, I’m gonna come and I have other things I want to do to—that I want _you_ to do to—”

Tony lifts up his head, wiping his mouth on his arm and chuckling. “Oh yeah, like what?”

Gob’s breathing is heavy and his hands are fisted in the sheets. He cranes his neck and looks at Tony. “What like what?”

“You said you had other things you wanted me to do to you.”

“Really, I said that?” Gob looks at him suspiciously.

“Yeah, you literally just said it. Just now.”

Gob’s face is already flushed, but it goes one shade redder. “Oh. That doesn’t really sound like something I would say.” He inspects the edge of the bedsheet.

Tony just stares at him.

Gob glances up. He’s embarrassed, but what the hell, he’s sure they’ll both take forget-me-nows afterwards, so he might as well ask for what he wants. “I wanted to say—well, I was _going_ to say—that I wanted to fuck you, but then on second thought, I thought no, I don’t want to do that, I want—I want you to fuck _me_.”

Tony’s dick was already hard, but at hearing that it becomes painful. He looks up and down Gob’s naked body. “I want to do that too,” he says quietly.

Gob grins and sits up on the bed. “I have condoms and lube.”

“You do?”

“Well I invited you here for a normal gay sex date, so it would be _pretty weird_ if I didn’t have that stuff.”

“I guess I’m a little surprised that you bothered to prepare for it.”

Gob turns around to open the drawer of the nightstand, but Tony can see that he’s blushing again. “Maybe I have it here for all the chicks I’m fucking.” That’s not actually why he has it, but he doesn’t have to tell Tony that. “Fuck, they’re not here.”

Gob gets up off the bed and starts tearing through the dresser drawers. Where the hell did he put them? He’s going to lose his mind if he doesn’t find them, he’s so horny and he’s knocking random props from his magic act on the ground, and—okay, there they are.

Gob hands Tony the lube and a condom and gets back in bed, smiling tentatively at Tony and then turning over on his stomach.

Tony stares at Gob’s ass. Fuck, that’s a great ass. Even a straight guy (like himself) has to admit something like that, because it would be unnatural _not_ to. He’s not sure he’d say that he’d _kill_ for it, but—ok, he would. He would kill for that ass. “Gobie, have you ever done this before?”

Gob is quiet for a second before answering, “Not with an actual dick.”

“I’ll be gentle.”

Gob barks a laugh that sounds a little forced, a little nervous. “Not too gentle, I can handle it. You think the guy in the—can’t handle—”

Tony smiles, even though Gob can’t see it, and leans forward to kiss Gob’s back. Gob shivers. He puts both his hands on Gob’s ass and squeezes, continuing to kiss up and down his back. God, Gob is jacked. How is he so jacked? Is this what happens when you consume nothing but alcohol, mustard, and tasteless powdered parmesan? Tony is in pretty good shape himself, but for the first time he starts feeling a little self-conscious about his body. Maybe Gob—

“Tony…” Gob whines. “What are you _doing_?” He starts rocking his hips minutely, clearly impatient.

Tony doesn’t respond, just laughs, and starts warming up some lube with his hands. He slides one finger between Gob’s cheeks, rubbing and teasing experimentally. Gob’s breath hitches and his hips start rocking more obviously. He slides one finger inside and Gob seems fine, so he does a second. He stops when Gob makes what sounds like a strangled cry muffled by the pillow. “Gob, are you okay?”

Gob responds, but again it’s muffled by the pillow and Tony can’t understand a word. “What?”

Gob lifts his head. “I said I’m fine,” he says, but his voice is high and tight, and Tony isn’t sure he sounds like he’s fine.

“Are you sure?”

“Tony, please,” Gob says, in a voice that sounds to Tony like desperation. He thinks it must actually _be_ desperation. Gob Bluth doesn’t say please.

“Please what?”

Gob makes a frustrated noise. “If you think there’s a chance in hell that I’m going to say ‘please, sir’ to you, then you are out of your mind.” He somehow manages to sound both hysterical and offended.

That’s not what Tony meant at all, and he breaks into laughter. “Gob, I was just asking if you meant ‘please keep going’ or ‘please stop.’”

“Fuck, Tony, what’s wrong with you, don’t _stop_ , Jesus Christ, why would you—” He breaks off the sentence and all but shouts into the pillow as Tony curls his fingers inside him. Then Tony slowly slides them out and starts tearing open the condom wrapper.

“Tony, you _bastard_ , I told you not to stop, I’m going to _kill_ you, unless I die right now, which feels like a real—” Once again he’s stopped mid-sentence when he feels Tony’s cock replace his fingers against his ass.

As Tony slides in, Gob grips the headboard and groans, and Tony starts to feel lightheaded. He thinks maybe he’s groaning too. Maybe he’s saying Gob’s name. He’s not sure because he can’t focus on anything except how Gob feels around his cock. Then on the periphery of his awareness he hears Gob saying, “Harder, Tony, please, harder,” and Tony has never been happier to oblige someone in bed.

Every time Tony thrusts, Gob feels Tony’s cock hit some place deep inside him, he feels his own cock rub against the bed beneath him, and he says Tony’s name. He thinks he’s saying Tony’s name. He’s at least _trying_ to say Tony’s name.

Tony’s thrusts become longer and harder, pressing Gob into the mattress. They’re both panting, until Tony starts babbling Gob’s name again and reaches underneath to grip Gob’s cock. He pumps it as his hips stutter against Gob’s and he holds him as close as physically possible. His words devolve into moans as he comes.

Gob doesn’t last much longer. He feels Tony come inside him, and Tony’s hand around his cock, and there’s really nothing else he can do.

Even though it feels a little girly, the first thing he does after Tony falls onto him is pull Tony down onto the bed and kiss him softly on the lips, his arm sliding around Tony’s waist. “That was amazing.”

“Yeah,” says Tony breathlessly. “Although instead of amazing I would say it was _wonder_ ful.”

“I would have said that too, except then you might feel obligated to perform an illusion, and I don’t want you to get out of bed.”

Tony smiles and returns Gob’s kiss.

After lying like that for an unknown amount of time, Gob flops onto his back and is thrown out of his warm post-orgasm haze. He immediately bolts upright when he sees the room. “Holy shit.”

“What?” Tony sits up too and looks around. “Fuck.” The room is an absolute disaster.

Of course there are the obligate clothes strewn everywhere, and even though Gob had only been wearing a robe, Tony had been wearing a lot more than he’d appeared to be. Not surprisingly, everything is covered with a layer of glitter. Where Gob had thrown Tony’s jacket there’s a tangle of pyrotechnic wires and lighter fluid splatters on the wall. Pellets of mouse food are scattered over the floor, and Gob thinks he sees one or two of the mice themselves darting around underneath the dresser. It also looks like Tony had come prepared to do the “pulling food out of his skin” illusion because there are a couple slices of bread and some broken Hanukkah cookies that seem to have fallen out of his tank top. How the fuck had Gob missed that when he pulled it off? There’s also about a gallon of wax and some other random props spilled on the ground from when Gob rummaged through the drawers looking for the lube. But the vast majority of the mess had come from Tony’s clothes.

“Why the hell did you bring all that to a sex date?”

Tony looks a little sheepish. “I didn’t think we were actually going to have sex. And I normally have all that stuff on me, so I didn’t feel a need to take it off.”

At first an expression of hurt flashes across Gob’s face. Tony thinks about how Gob wears every emotion out in the open where everyone can see. He knows this sounds super fucking gay, but he actually finds it sweet.

But then Gob says, “That’s fair. I only invited you here to get revenge on you anyway.”

Tony had forgotten about that. He wants to ask Gob about it, but not right now. Why ruin his good mood with the truth when he can put it off and potentially be upset later instead? That sounds much better. “Well I don’t think it worked. Or if it did, feel free to get revenge on me any time you want.” He says it as a joke, but he thinks he might mean it.

Gob’s face, ever the open book, is now covered in that dopey, crooked grin. He puts his hand to the side of Tony’s face and kisses him open-mouthed. But after a few seconds he pulls away. “Fuck, it’s Cinco. Tomorrow’s the other Cinco. Maria isn’t going to be working, we need to clean this shit up. I’m going to text her.”

“You’re going to text your maid in the middle of the night to clean up the mess we made while we were fucking?”

“Yeah.”

Tony shrugs. He’s never had a maid, so he has no idea if that’s normal or not. But he _does_ know that he doesn’t want to clean up this mess himself.

Gob slides off the bed and crosses the room to get his phone, while Tony wraps himself in Gob’s robe. Gob grins when he turns around and sees him in it. He jumps on the bed and puts an arm around Tony, pulling him down. But all they do is lie there and talk. Both of them think to themselves that despite everything else, this may be the weirdest part. Weird, but nice.

Twenty minutes later they hear a car come up the driveway. Assuming it’s Maria, Gob gets out of bed and pulls on his clothes. “I’ll go meet her, feel free to hide in the bathroom, it’s at the end of the hall.” He’s halfway finished buttoning his shirt when he says, “I’m also going to go take a forget-me-now, you want one?”

Tony doesn’t know what to say to that, but it doesn’t really matter because Gob isn’t waiting for him to answer. He’s closing the door and Tony can hear him saying, “Is that you, Maria?” Then there are more muffled voices, but nothing Tony can catch.

Obviously Tony knows about forget-me-nows; they’re a staple for magicians. He’s used them countless times. But never on himself. For some reason it’s never occurred to him to do that. When you’re living a lie, meticulously planning every public action for your career, and constantly keeping track of who knows what, it’s not really beneficial to forget things you’ve done.

But Gob says it so casually, like he does it all the time. Maybe he does. He wants to forget that they had sex, so he will.

Tony sighs and flops back on the bed. If Gob forgets, then he wants to forget too. It would be too fucking _weird_ to be the only one who remembers this. On the other hand, it’s impossible to truly control which memories you lose. He doesn’t want to forget everything he told… her last night. He furrows his brow as he remembers what he said to her. About his plan, about _The Magic Show_ , about Fakeblock… Until this moment he hadn’t even remembered she was involved. But he has to make sure he doesn’t forget again. She said no one she knows will care what he told her, but you never really know. Better not to risk it. Better to keep an eye on the situation.

He’s a tiny bit hurt that Gob wants to forget what just happened, but he gets it. He really does. Like he’s said before, Gob is an easy guy to get. He can already feel the panicked questions at the edge of his mind, demanding he consider the implications of what he just did with Gob. But he’s better at compartmentalizing than Gob is. Hell, he spends most of his life pretending to be flamboyantly gay, and somehow this is the first time it’s ever occurred to him that maybe he _is_ a little bit gay. Career persona in one compartment, his actual self in a second compartment, and this night in a third compartment until he feels like he wants to look at it. Which, if Gob forgets it, will probably be never. 

But Gob can’t section off his brain like that. Everything he does and feels spills into everything else he does and feels. It’s one of the biggest ways they’re not same, but Tony likes it about him. Even if it makes him think he has to run away from feelings he doesn’t understand.

Yeah, he understands perfectly well why Gob doesn’t want to remember this, but he desperately doesn’t want to alter his own memory, _or_ be the only one who remembers. So he’s feeling a little bit stuck, alone in the bedroom while Gob might be forgetting everything.

*** 

When Gob walks down the steps, it’s not Maria he sees, but Michael. Fucking _Michael_. He’s already feeling a smoldering shame and low-level panic about what he’d just done with Tony. What he’d done and even more so, how much he’d liked it.

But he’s not thinking about that right now.

The shame and panic rise when he thinks about Michael finding out, and then inevitably the rest of the family. Fuck. His father. Fuck, he feels like he’s going to choke.

Michael is saying something about being ashamed of whatever he’d just done. Stupid Michael. Judging Gob for sleeping with Tony when what Michael did was undoubtedly worse. Of course, Gob realizes that Michael has’t judged him (yet), Michael doesn’t even _know_ , and that he has no clue what Michael actually did. It might be something mundane like fucking someone he thinks is gross. Maybe Kitty, or Lucille Two. Whatever, they’ve all been there. Gob’s been at least a little bit repulsed by the majority of the women he’s slept with.

He quickly pushes that thought out of his mind. He doesn’t want to think about what it means. It probably means nothing anyway.

“You could not make me feel any worse right now.”

“I’d be willing to let you take back your apology if you give me the chance to try.” He just wants to take the forget-me-now and get Michael out of here. But Michael doesn’t look like he wants to leave, and this is the next best thing to dull the shame. On the rare occasions he can feel superior to Michael, he can forget for a few minutes what a fuckup he is.

He wants to take a stab at what Michael is ashamed of, and say something mean about it. Even if Michael won’t tell him, maybe he’ll get it right, and he can feel that brief moment of superiority.

But what comes out of his mouth is nowhere near a legitimate guess at what Michael did. Instead, what comes out are the thoughts that won’t stop swirling around his _own_ mind, because his mouth is a fucking traitor and he can never keep anything inside his brain. This is why he needs the forget-me-nows.

“If you were ashamed of being in love with a man…” Gob keeps rambling, spilling out his secrets under the guise of a hypothetical situation to hurt Michael, but all it does is cement his own fears in his mind. He’s in love with Tony Wonder. He’s in love with a man. He’s in _love_ with a _man_. “…But all you did was end up proving your feelings were real.” His feelings are real. Oh god, they’re too fucking real. “Then I might say something like, ‘homo much?’”

“It’s not that.”

Of course it’s not, perfect Michael would never be anything other than straight. Even if he’s only ever fucked five women. Maybe six or seven by now, but definitely less than ten. Even though Michael has only fucked five women, and Gob dozens, maybe even hundreds, none of that matters because of Tony. Because none of those women can even compare to Tony. He’s lost the one thing he was better at than Michael, the one thing he could share with their father and feel even the hope that he’d be proud.

If he takes a forget-me-now and never sees Tony again, he can at least get that one thing back.

Michael is saying, “Believe me, Gob, this is the last time I ever judge you for anything you ever do.” Gob absolutely _doesn’t_ believe him, knows it’s a load of bullshit, but the speed with which he’s proved right still gives him whiplash.

Tony is walking down the stairs, still in Gob’s bathrobe, because Gob has been gone way longer than it takes to ask a maid to clean a bedroom. But when he passes the banister, instead of a maid he sees Gob arguing with his brother. They both look up at him, Gob’s brother with a sudden look of understanding on his face.

“Oh, _shit_.” He’s down the stairs and out the door before he can see what either of them does, but he knows that if Gob is taking a forget-me-now himself, then he’s _definitely_ giving one to his brother.

***

Michael is so full of shit. “I always knew it.” Always knew what? That Gob was dating Tony Wonder? Not likely. They’d literally just gotten into a fight in a ball pit because Michael thought Gob was dating the same celebrity _he_ was. Bizarre. Although to be fair, that does sound like something Gob would do. But still, probably only if he knew she was dating Michael. Which he didn’t.

No, Michael probably meant “I always knew you were gay.” Which also seemed unlikely to Gob. _Gob_ hadn’t even known he was gay. He’s not sure he’s gay _now_. “I’m the straightest guy I know,” he mumbles to himself as he sits on top of Michael, waiting until the forget-me-now has fully kicked in. “You don’t know anything.”

Once Michael is asleep, Gob gets up off the floor. “Tony?” He looks in the bedroom (not there), then the bathroom (not there either), and then the rest of the house. Tony is gone. Fuck. He’s out of forget-me-nows and it’s the middle of the night; the Mexican drugstore won’t be open until morning. Fuck. Suddenly a thought occurs to him, and he feels like he’s going to vomit. Is Tony going to tell anyone? _Fuck_.

“I’ve made a huge mistake.” He’s not sure which part of what he did was a mistake. Maybe all of it. But definitely at least part of it, or else he wouldn’t be standing in this piece of shit house, with an unconscious brother, out of forget-me-nows, no idea where Tony went, and feeling strangely empty.

***

Tony wakes up in his own bed the next morning, and for a few seconds he remembers nothing about what happened the night before. _This must be how Gob feels_ , he thinks. At first he’s not sure what that thought means. How Gob feels about what? Until he remembers what happened.

He’s glad Sally isn’t there, wasn’t there when he got home. He doesn’t want to answer any of her annoying questions. “Be careful,” she keeps saying. He’s always careful, at least when it counts.

Well. Maybe not always. He hadn’t been careful last night. Fuck, maybe he should have listened to Sally.

He’s not entirely sure why he calls Gob. It’s not meticulously planned. It’s not careful. Sally would be enraged. Fuck Sally though. The only thing he cares about right now is whether or not Gob remembers.

He gets Gob’s voicemail. “Hey Gobie, just wanted to make sure we’re still on for our sex date tonight!”

Okay, maybe whether or not Gob remembers isn’t the _only_ thing he cares about. Maybe he also cares about this fucking _pain_ in his chest, the one that gets worse every time he thinks about the chances that Gob didn’t take a forget-me-now. Not very high. And if Tony’s not going to forget too, he can at least _pretend_ to forget. Pretend he doesn’t care. Hey, pretend something hard enough and it becomes real, right? Like magic. 

It’s weird. Here he is, the _very_ openly gay magician, but secretly he’s straight. Then, underneath his secret straightness, he’s secretly in maybe-love with a man. But he’s always been good at compartmentalizing. It’s not going to be a problem.

***

Gob accidentally wakes up late on the fifth, and immediately panics because he’s really pushing the forget-me-now window at this point. A small part of him thinks that maybe he doesn’t need to take one. Maybe he could call Tony. Maybe… maybe they could do it again.

Why would he want to forget the best sex of his life, anyway? He’s only mulled that over for a few seconds before the panic rises again and he realizes why. It’s because it _was_ the best sex of his life. He’s not even sure it was particularly great sex, objectively speaking. But getting fucked by a man fulfilled and satisfied him in a way that fucking women never had. What does that say about him? He knows then that he needs to get more pills. They’re the only way he won’t have to answer that question.

He listens to the messages on his phone, and there’s his mother, telling him it’s time for him to step up and become president. He knows he’s the last resort, that’s the only reason she would call him, but he can’t help but feel hopeful, like maybe he can prove something to her. “No scandals,” she says. Did last night count as a scandal? Gob isn’t sure, but he figures it doesn’t matter, because it happened before his mother called, and he’s going to forget it anyway.

Then he hears the message from Tony. For a short time, he legitimately can’t breathe. Tony forgot. Tony took a forget-me-now and chose to _forget_. Despite the fact that that’s his plan too, it hurts. This is why he needs to take one, it fucking _hurts_.

He stops in the middle of shaving and walks out the door, to the Mexican drugstore. He doesn’t want to spend even one more second in love with Tony Wonder.


End file.
